NI towers consigned to scrapheap

From 'bandit country' to beauty

STURGAN MOUNTAIN, Northern Ireland -- The Army is rushing to return parts of the Northern Ireland landscape from a battlefront to its natural beauty.

Soldiers are beginning to tear down security towers, the steel monuments to military occupation over the years, as a sign of the new spirit of co-operation that is sweeping the region.

The British government, which has used military stations as their eyes and ears across Northern Ireland for years, are bringing down the observation towers that have leered over the countryside.

Two of the first to go are at Sturgan Mountain and Camlough Mountain.

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The operation will take months to remove all the 300 tonnes of equipment and metal, but a 50-feet (15-metre) high tower, perched above sleeping quarters and a box-shaped recreation room, will disappear within 10 days.

Sparks flew and metal cutters roared on Thursday as engineers began their task on watchtower "Romeo One One" on the blustery top of Sturgan Mountain in the heart of Northern Ireland's infamous "bandit country."

The military watchtower -- a cramped, camouflaged security installation 800 feet (240 metres) above sea level -- was consigned to the scrap heap after the IRA's momentous decision to start disarming earlier this week.

Army engineers toiled in howling wind on the bleak summit overlooking a patchwork of hills, fields and streams -- countryside which was a war zone until recently.

"We intend to put this back to a greenfield site. It is our aim to remove everything right down and leave it rock and earth," Major Alastair Balgarnie of the Royal Engineers told reporters.

Mist shrouded the nearest ridge -- Camlough Mountain -- where another watchtower was being flattened two days after the Irish Republican Army said it had begun to scrap weaponry that had sustained its bitter war against British rule. The British government announced on Wednesday it was immediately starting work to tear down the two watchtowers and an army base at Magherafelt in County Derry and an installation at Newton Hamilton in County Armagh.

People living in the republican strongholds of south Armagh, close to the border with the Irish Republic, have viewed the ring of watchtowers at 10 summits as spy satellites.

British authorities say the posts -- with surveillance and listening equipment directed over the landscape -- have been crucial in keeping at bay republican militants.

They became a focus in the battle between rebels and the British forces, creating a stretch of territory known as "bandit country" because of heavy casualties inflicted by the IRA against security forces in bases close to the Irish border. For the first time in many years its electronic surveillance equipment has been switched off.

Inside the cramped metal compound, soldiers were non-committal about the prospect of pulling the tower down.

"It's another job of which there are many all around the world -- that's the way we treat it," said Sergeant Major Robert Stewart.